Imperial Consultants and Imperial College London to continue on-going collaboration with Shell

The agreement builds on current relationships between Shell, Imperial College London and Imperial Consultants and will enable Shell to explore new opportunities to meet current and emerging requirements by bringing together multidisciplinary capabilities.

“The signing of a research framework agreement between Shell and Imperial is a perfect example of the type of collaborative approach that will be necessary to deliver – at speed – the technologies that will be instrumental to produce more affordable energy with less environmental stress.”

Building on existing collaboration

Over the last two decades, Imperial Consultants has facilitated over 60 consultancy projects for Shell, providing access to the expert knowledge of Imperial’s scientists and engineers. Additionally, Shell has direct links with several College departments in the Faculties of Engineering and Natural Sciences through major research programmes, PhD sponsorship, technical workshops, joint events, and student engagement in the form of career fairs and recruitment opportunities.

Partnerships with universities, companies and institutes enables Shell to share knowledge and ideas and drive forward research and development, especially as its research portfolio continues to grow and building up specialist in-house skills takes time. In addition to selected universities, Shell’s Extra Mural Research programme also extends to national laboratories, foundations, framework programmes (such as Joint Industry Programmes) and SMEs.

Marking the occasion

The framework agreement was acknowledged in a recent ceremony hosted at the College’s 58 Prince’s Gate on 6th June 2013. In attendance were a number of Senior Executive Leaders from Shell, including Gerald Schotman and Ed Daniels, Chairman of Shell UK Ltd, in addition to representatives from College departments led by Professor Jeff Magee, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. Rebecca Andrew, Director of Business Development & Marketing and Edward Hamer, Contracts Executive, who were involved in the negotiations on behalf of Imperial Consultants, also attended the event.

Rebecca Andrew adds:

“This agreement paves the way to exciting opportunities for our academics to work with Shell on topical issues, allowing them to put their research into practice through consultancy. We look forward to continuing our long-standing relationship with Shell in providing world-class academic expertise in order to address their emerging challenges."